What's your won/lost record as a repairman?

Hi All -

 

The other night I managed to disassemble, repair, and reassemble an

old Minolta lens. It actually works! However, I've killed a few

things along the way. My nemesis is the "spring bomb", where some

part leaps out of the partly disassembled camera. You never see

where it came from...all you hear is a little *tink* noise as it

lands somewhere in the room.

 

I also have a problem with leaving well enough alone. I've made a

repair, decided that something could be just a little better, and

then destroyed it on the second go-round.

 

Fortunately, I've never killed a really expensive piece of gear, but

I'm sure its only a matter of time.

Hi Kevin! You just made my day....I will honestly tell you that I have far more misses than hits! YES...The spring bomb! Tell me this, if it flys apart when you take it apart, HOW THE @#$%% DID THEY GET IT TOGETHER THE FIRST TIME! I too have suffered the ravages of the disease known as "Ishouldaleftitalone"...The following is my actual thought process in dealing with this..REALLY!

1. It really is annoying me that there is a SPECK of dust or a spot

inside my lens/viewfinder

2. This spot/speck is going to keep me from making a Pulitzer Prize

winning photograph..It simply has to be delt with!

3. How hard can it really be?

4. It really didn't cost that much to begin with

5. There are only 3 screws holding "it" on

5b. Break tip off of mini screwdriver I bought at the dollar store

5c. Can't find suitable replacement size, go to kitchen to fetch

small paring knife to use tip to remove screw

5d. Wife asks "where are you going with my good Chicago Cutlery knife

"Uh, nowhere dear"....

6. Remove 2 screws, wreck the 3rd one trying to get it off, marring

otherwise nice finish.

7. Must be 4 screws, still doesn't come off

8. Look closer, find that the whole assembly comes off, didn't need

to remove screws in the first place.

9. Find out dust/smudge is actually between two glued together

elements, can't clean anyway

10. Have no idea how goes back together

11. Ponder this whole project with an adult beverage

12. EBay listing: For sale camera/lens parts only used to work fine

13. Start looking on Ebay or KEH for something to replace it with

14. This was educational right?

15. Vow never to do this again...as I look at the pile of projects

that has accumulated after 20 years of breaking the vow..........

**Please someone tell me I'm not the only one that thinks like this?"

Happy repairs!

Mark

No, Kevin and Mark, you are most definitely not alone. While I would also follow the both of you step by step, my real specialty is meddling with cameras, before having bothered to procure the instruction booklet to understand how the work. What about, say, ruining a perfectly good Retina Reflex III, simply because I didn't know that when the frame counter is past 36 the advance will be blocked? Clever, uh?

I still have to put together a 135/3.5 Takumar. I think I screwed up the screw [pun] bu adjusting too much and grinding the aluminum.

 

My only casualty in this hooby so far

Let's see:

 

1. Got 4 Electro GSN - fixed 3, killed 1

2. Got 2 Electro AX SLRS - fixed 1, the other was DOA and is now a parts contributor (Shutter works, but shutter always the same speed)

3. Got 2 Kiev 4 - fixed 1, the other is still pending "Surgery"

4. Got 2 Zorki 6 - one was ok, the other was ok until I started "surgery"

5. Got 2 Fed 5 - one has a broken meter, the other is totally disassembled and spare parts for a fed 2 :)

6. Got 3 Iskras - one was totally disassembled as parts for the other, and 2 working iskras :)

7. Got a crown Graphic - working fine until I decided to clean the rangefinder... now I'm waiting for some free time to put in a new beam splitter mirror :)

 

Looks like an almost 50% record :)

What I tend to do is to buy 2 of each type of camera that I am interested in, one described as guaranteed working and the other usually "as-is". That way, I have a working and a parts camera at the lowest possible cost :)

I've actually repaired Rolleiflexes, a Canonet 28 and (almost) a Pentax A110. Everything else I have ruined, including a Minox 35 and a couple of Canon EOS lenses. Which goes to show that the higher the plastic content, the more likely I am to break it.

Well, let's see. The only one I've ever screwed up significantly was the bent focus helix on the taking lens of my Kodak Reflex II, done while (successfully) cleaning the shutter to restore correct slow-speed operation. Optically and mechanically, the camera is perfect -- except that sometimes the middle element unscrews from the shutter before the front element gets to infinity focus (they have opposite handed threads). I have a couple possible solutions in hand, just need to get a Round Tuit. Meantime, I have another camera on the way -- found one for $10 and no one else bid, for a change. Sticky shutter, but I now know how to avoid screwing up the lens fixing that...

 

Otherwise, starting at age 15, in 1975, and working with no documentation of any kind (not even a simple "this is a focal plane shutter" sort of brochure) I have never made a camera worse. I haven't always fixed the original problem (or it hasn't stayed fixed), but even with that first Exa II, which I had all the way down to the shutter box but didn't know enough about to correct the second curtain sticking before it completely closed (it worked fine for a while after reassembly, then started acting up again -- but it did work), I always get them back together.

 

I'll admit it -- I've mangled a couple screw heads, but never quite badly enough I couldn't get them back in and out again if/as needed. I've scratched up the areas around a retaining ring removing a shutter, using two screwdrivers as a spanner (I really need to make a spanner sometime; heaven knows I have the tools to do it). I've bent up the nameplate covering a screw once or twice (though never so badly I couldn't flatten it and glue it back on once the repair was complete).

 

I've never sold a camera for more than I paid, but I've never completely ruined one, either, and these days, I have no intention of turning loose anything I own, so I don't worry about value -- just about whether it works.

 

Most recently, I repaired a jammed, misassembled, and rather gummy Prontor-Press shutter with no manual, just figured it out as I went. Traded it (with the Dominar Anastigmat mounted in it) for the Voigtlander Rollfilmkamera that's now producing my best images.

 

However, I've never encountered a spring bomb, either, and I've got a very, very good record for finding tiny screws when dropped, even on an Oriental rug...

DQ's story is very reassuring, but Kittleson's account was hilarious!

I will stick to afixing and removing the lens cap.

 

M.

Very funny, Mark. Makes me wonder if it's even safe for me to attempt the black tape rangefinder patch "repair" referred to by Dan Iggers in <a href=http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00CHH3>this thread</a> ?

Only have the same amount of parts I ever need for other cameras because I seem to always have extra parts after I fix one. LOL<div></div>

First attempt was a failure, trying to fix a sticky shutter on a Kodak Vigilant Six-20. Pulled screws from the back, because I couldn't get the middle element out. Sproing. That was busted for some 30 years.

 

But with the information now available on the Internet, and Tomosy's books, I finally went back at that camera about a year or two ago. Cut slots in the ring for the middle element (it was way too tight for a ring wrench), and finally got it apart. It's working very nicely now. Not that I think I've actaully used it since repair (my Monitor Six-20 is the 620 camera of choice), but the satisfaction of finally rectifying that butchering was considerable.

 

Other than that, my track record has been fine, haven't made anything really worse. I've left the occasional coating scuff on lenses I've worked on. I'm replacing the shutter on my Canon IIF over the last few days, and did make the screw on the bottom of the drum shaft pretty ugly -- it was very glued. But I have the new curtains in, and there's just calibration to do, and final reassembly.

 

However, I'm also learning some judgement. I've looked at my Canon IV-SB2, which is running slow, and could use new curtains, but it looks like it may just be more tricky than I want to tackle. The flash sync adds some complicated kinks that I'm not sure I want to deal with. There's a gear off one of the take-up drums, and that means that there are two gears that need to be "timed" right to get the bottom plate on. (The design of the opening curtain brake requires gear timing.)

 

But I've successfully cleaned up quite a few leaf shutters, Supermatics on Monitors and 3A's, and have fixed several 3A cameras. I got the focusing unfrozen on an Aires Viscount. I've replaced the focal plane shutter in my Foth Derby. I've replaced the meter movement in a Topcon Super D.

 

But, I've had strong mechanical intuition since before I could talk. (I helped my parents put their Hoover back together as a toddler.)

Well, the last "repair" of me ended up as a butchering party, really. I tried to get out the shutter/lens assembly from a prewar ikomat folder. But the camera body was so much rusted that i could not unscrew the retaining ring from tne inside of the bellows. So what I did, i just ripped the arms off the board that keeps the shutter unit. Then used a small saw to get the retaining ring off. Ouch! Some might remember my questions about how to restore such an old rusty folder; now, this is the result, i have a reasonable (although fungus-marked here and there) uncoated Tessar and a cleaned Compur that works but the 1 s and the 10 s speeds are not good. The rest of the "camera" is thrown out.

 

When I took my Jupiter-9 in Kiev mount apart, for a cleaning and re-adjusting the position of the locking flap, there was a weird large springy wire around the focusing heliocal. Now that took some time to figure out how it should go back into place.

 

I still have a tokina 70-210 zoom lens which does not have 'click stops' for the aperture values, since i repaired it. The little steel ball is lost in the big world. But the aperture blades are oil-free now.

 

I think this is all of my negative experience with camera tinkering. Except some marks on screwheads and such.

I have several candidates lined up which I am too chicken to try.

My record is about 1-3-1. I've successfully disassembled and cleaned a LTM 13.5cm lens, but destroyed a small P&S with a stiff lens assembly. I've had bad luck with some little Oly rangefinders, too, but they were already completely broken.

 

I'm currently at a draw with my ZI Contessa LKE; she's got the upper hand right now, but not for long... not for long.

 

I have a 100% spring/screw/tiny part recovery rate so far, on carpet, throw rugs, linoleum, and even concrete (OK, it was motorcycle parts on the concrete, but those little brass springs disappear quickly on a ~4000 sq ft floor). Sometimes dinner gets cold while I'm down on the floor looking for those damned grub screws, or tiny springs, but I refuse to lose them!

I haven't lost a patient yet, but I wrote one off as too much trouble to fix completely (Ikonta 520L donated to Les Gediman), and I have a Contaflex IV in a long coma waiting for time/patience.

 

Also, in many cases an attempt is better than nothing, even if unsuccessful, when the equipment is otherwise worthless.

I had a Minolta 58mm MC f1.2 lens, the size of a cannon ball. The auto aperture was slow in stopping down when the shutter button was pushed resulting in overexposure at smaller settings than f1.2. A look inside resulted in tiny little steel balls rolling hither and yon to be lost forever. I now have a nice lens that won't stop down at all. But boy, it sure looks nice.

MK's "Ishouldofleftitalne" post is hilarious.

 

Mixed reviews on my part. Even though I start with practice on a junker, be it a lens or an entire camera, I want the repair to come out perfect. What I've learned is that sometimes - good enough - is good enough.

 

If you want to do it yourself, you will sooner than later need a parts donor for either an errant screw or to replace a non-functioning component. It is imperative to go in stages and have plenty of light, plus the right tools.

 

My ratio of success is 1 disaster in 7, which means the camera or lens is worse shape than when I started. 2 No Improvements in 7. 4 stunningly sucesses in 7. The middle 2 bother me more than the first 1.

The "spring bomb" is a fun one, especially on a leaf-shutter assembly.

Inside the finder of a Minolta SRT-201 is a linear readout (across the bottom) that tells you what the camera's shutter is set to.

 

Well, after several serious jolts (Space Mountain, various other roller-coasters, work related stuff, etc.), the readout strip broke free of the camera and started floating thru the viewfinder.

 

I figured.....no problem. Just pop the top off of the camera, take the thing out (I never really used it, anyway) and all would be well.

 

Well.........................

 

 

I never could get the top off of the SRT. I tried. And tried. A good friend of mine tried (he was a watchmaker, too....I figured he'd get if off!).

 

I lost track of that SRT years ago....but I'm sure the doggone top is STILL on it!!!!

Four years ago I serviced a Rollei 35S that had a jammed shutter. Once gone through the mechanics I discovered that it had a Copal shutter, not a Compur (some made 1974-1976 were like this). Well. Why not. So I dismantled the shutter module to clean it and fit a gearwheel back onto its shaft (the problem's source).

 

I was working on the kitchen's table. A triangular spring which was an important part of the shutter module suddenly jumped away towards the end of the kitchen and fell somewhere with a little "snip". I began to look for it. The search took me several hours, with no result even with a torch lamp.

 

So - I was in a mess. Finally I e-mailed the wonderful Nadine Walouch from the Rollei factory in Braunschweig, Germany, and she sent me a NOS Compur shutter module which I successfully fitted into the camera - but I had to replace the whole shutter platine with one I took on a parts body as the one designed for the Copal shutter wasn't drilled the same way than the one designed to receive the Compur shutter. Also, the main speed selector cam was different. Well. The job took me several days to complete because I had to transplant the lens barrel, the speeds and aperture commands cams, etc. Fortunately I had the factory repair manual with me...

 

Several weeks later I removed some potatoes from the vegetables bin that is at the end of the kitchen to peel them off for the dinner. On one of the potatoes I saw something shining. I looked closer. Of course it was the Copal shutter spring.

 

I still have that beautiful and mint chrome 35S and it works perfectly. It finally was "a good thing for a bad thing", because the camera has now a Compur heart instead of that tricky Copal one...

 

:)=

Mark Kittleson's hilarious story corresponds the full 100% with my own. The ones I managed to screw together again were never better after than before my surgery, just different. I found out too late that you don't need to remove the shutter button and its locking collar on an Electro GSN : something else holds the top down! Now the collar can turn full circle (I ended up trying to rip it off!) I could not completely cure the lens wobble on the Konica Auto S2, but at least now the shutter speed ring is tight as hell. I hate to open up the lens barrel a second time since I marred the beauty ring the first time. I killed a shiny UV-Topcor 50/F2 lens by wanting to swap its perfect focusing ring against the mildly scratched one of my first lens - I couldn't resist to remove the front group and it never wanted to go back on again. Broke a pin and threw away the three seperate lens parts. I did salvage every possible screw and spring (and the focusing ring) to make up for the $10.00 cost of the lens. Latest horror : I never succeeded to remove the top of a $30.00 Nikon EL2, so I screwed it all back together again but the green pointer in the viewfinder does no longer care what the shutter speed barrel does. Also a tiny steel ball fell out from somewhere (from the motor drive axle ball race?) and I stuck it in a free whole in the locking ring around the shutter release button. I knew that wasn't its original place, but it is now. Forever! Why did I do that? Perhaps I'd already given up on the poor EL2. Score? I'd say about 1:1. What do you think?

I fugure I've got a 100% sucess rate. They didn't work when I started on them and they didn't work when I finished. At least they were clean.

 

Really though, I've had one total disaster. A Meyer Optic Domiplan with a non-functioning aperture. Got it fixed and when I re-assembled it caught the actuator lever on another internal part and broke it clean off.

 

Everything else came out better than when I started. My first serious repair was on a Signet 35 with frozen focus and stuck shutter. Worked at it sporadically for two years. I finally got serious one week, took everything off that it made sense, C'd, L'd, and A'd everything I could and got it put back together. Took me a full day to adjust the focus on it. Made great photos. Sold it at a 6x profit if I don't count my time. 'Course, it only cost me $7 to start with.

 

Done a bunch of Agfa Silettes I got cheap. All bought as non-functioning, all now working perfectly. Half have bad front elements though, which I can't fix. Ansco Super Regents, Ziess folders and Continas, some Retinettes, along with some gear focusing tlr's, Super Memars, and a Zenit all came out better off.

 

I used to be wary of shutter problems, since they seem fiendishly complicated. Looks can be decieving, though. Out of around four dozen that I've now cleaned, only one was beyond hope. It had broken parts inside. Shame too, since it's on a decent Contina III. I'll find a donor someday for it.

 

I have a couple that may be head scratchers for a while. Two Agfa Karats sit on a shelf looking at me as I type, wondering when it will be their turn. I suppose I'll find out what I'm made of soon as I have a Rolleicord on the way from ebay that was described as a "Bold restoration project". We'll see. For the price of $16, I can imagine it's going to be a bit of work. What fun...

Ah this post is what I needed....Just laughing and laughing as I can see myself in the future doing this stuff. Can't say I have really screwed up anything other that brass screws that needed to be replaced. I have not yet been brave enough to go too deeply into anything. Mostly just looking which is tempting fate. Recently just swapped tops of Minolta SRT101 lots of dodads to screw up there. Gears springs cables and all kinds of cool stuff to get me in to trouble. Attempted fix of Retina IIa cocking rack found out rack was off sprockets but that was not the real issue. Problem is in the shutter I think some where. After removing shutter cover and things starting to push out and make noises all by itself, I quickly put the lid back on and said stay away from that.....

 

Mark K and Nicolas are killing me. Mark K. that is so how I think as well. The little things that don't matter in the end result bother me more than the major things. Little dust speck drive me NUTZ. But missing click stops, who needs em.

 

I do Like the repair tip that Nicolas shared. Just shove those extra parts in any open orfice you find and button it up. Oh man still laughing.................

Oh I guess is was Benny's TIP Just shove those extra parts in any open orfice you find and button it up. Oh man still laughing.................

My win/loss record is probably not great, but I finally tasted success with the Kalart rangefinder on my 4x5 Speed Graphic.

 

The mirror needed replacing so I bought a new one on eBay. Checked the instructions at various places and it seemed straight forward. Took the cover off and doused the mirror in acteone to try and remove the glue. No joy, so following some more online advice I resorted to breaking it and chipping out the remins. That's fine until one of the two very tiny (1.5mm) screws that holds the mirror assembly in place shears off while I'm hammering away.

 

OK, remove the whole assmebly from the camear, drill out the screw and retap the hole larger - back in business. Glue the new mirror in place and all I have to do is adjust it.

 

The online instructions mention three points of adjustment, but I have created a fourth by disconnecting the big arm inside the camera so that I can remove the rangefinder to fix the broken screw. I eventually work out how to get that back in roughly the right position. Set infinity and then adjust the little sliders to the factory values.

 

After hours of futile fiddling I check the prism and realise that it is bent out of position. Remove the prism housing and rebend the arm holding it in place. Drop the small screws on the carpet and spend half an hour finding them. Now reassemble so that the prism sits on the factory-set screw (adjustment point 5).

 

Now reset infinity, fiddle about with the adjsutment sliders and voila, it works! The rangefinder is now accurate from around four feet to infinity. And it only took me twelve hours.